


Fear of the Dark

by librisdedita



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Panic Attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librisdedita/pseuds/librisdedita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac is afraid of the dark, and what he finds there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear of the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Iron Maiden's 'Fear of the Dark', which gave me the idea for this fic.

Every Thursday, after school, they’d all traipse up to the Hale household, for whatever “training”/brutal injury Derek thought necessary, followed by whatever (invariably delicious) meal Stiles had cooked up for them while they were busy. That particular day, he’d got them going round some sort of assault course he’d rigged up, which seemed to involve an awful lot of vaulting and leaping onto very small landing spaces. It seemed to be going moderately well - Jackson, of course, complaining that he was a trained athlete and didn’t need any of this bullshit, while Derek glared at him with ever-increasing ferocity – until Boyd’s landing caused an ominous cracking sound in some of the floorboards, and Isaac, following hard on his heels, crashed straight through them and out of sight.

The rest of the pack turned at once, rushing to see what had happened. Derek pushed through them to reach the edge of the sudden hole.

“Isaac? Are you hurt? Can you get up?”

There was no answer.

“Isaac! Answer me!”

Now they heard it. A muffled sob from down there in the darkness.

“….Isaac?”

Scott dropped to his knees at the edge of the hole, testing the strength of the remaining floorboards in order to swing down by them. Derek turned to him, his expression changing from bewilderment to warning.

“Get back, Scott. We don’t know what’s down there. We don’t know if it’s safe, or even how deep it is.”

“Something’s wrong down there.” Scott leapt, swinging for a moment from the floorboard ends and then dropping, not at all gently, into the abyss below.

His feet hit hard concrete, as did his tailbone a few moments later. He yelped and looked around, blinking to try and adjust his eyes to the dark. He seemed to be in some sort of room. Odd.

“Hey, Derek!” he yelled. “Do you have more rooms in your basement? Cause I think I’m in one, if so.”

“Of course I have,” came the reply, “I just wasn’t expecting all you lot to ruin my floors and fall into them. Erica’s gone to fetch a ladder. Is there anything dangerous there?”

“Not that I can see.” Scott looked around more carefully, unable to see anything at all at first. Then he caught sight of Isaac huddled in a corner, looking oddly small with his knees hunched up around his ears. Dashing over, he bent down to the other boy and was shocked to find him shaking and breathing in great heaving gasps. 

“…Dude, you can’t have asthma, surely? What’s wrong?”

Isaac briefly lifted his head, shooting a panicked glance at Scott from wide, terrified eyes, and as quickly pulled it back down again. Scott leant down, instinctively pulling Isaac close, desperate to stop the normally confident boy from looking so vulnerable. He felt the other flinch away, and held on tighter, as if to stop him shaking simply by restricting his ability to move. And astonishingly, after a while, he felt Isaac lean into him, and heard his breathing slow and his trembling lessen.

The ladder arrived at last, heralded by a yell and a clatter, and the appearance of Boyd’s face at the edge of the hole as he steadied the top. Scott broke the silence – ‘Come on, dude, we can get out now’ – and then, as the seconds lengthened, realised Isaac wasn’t going to be getting up of his own accord any time soon. He heaved the other boy to his feet, hoping desperately that Isaac would be capable of walking, because he surely couldn’t carry him up a damned ladder, werewolf strength or no werewolf strength. Thankfully, though Isaac was none too steady, he seemed once upright to recall the purpose of his legs and feet. Scott guided him over to the ladder and encouraged him up it, talking all the time in what he hoped was a comforting undertone, as much for his benefit as for the other boy. 

Once at the top, Isaac huddled back into a corner, knees again round his ears, and wouldn’t speak to anyone. Derek took one look at him and sent Erica running for a blanket and Boyd for Stiles and coffee. Jackson, lip curling, made some comment about ‘pathetic cubs who can’t even cope with a bit of darkness’ and even as Scott began to tell him just what he thought of insensitive pricks who had the empathy and humanity of a stick insect, he knew that he would have to investigate this further; if Isaac really was scared of the dark, that would have to be dealt with, and before Derek got to know. 

With a blanket tucked securely round him and making faces at the cup of camomile tea Stiles had brought, insisting that it was far better than a stimulant like coffee, Isaac seemed slightly more in control. Stiles was sitting near him, having given Boyd strict instructions about what to do with dinner – ‘not much left to do now, just boil some peas and broccoli, and take the cottage pie out in fifteen minutes, no more’ – and sent the rest of the pack away - ‘he needs space and peace, not you group of effervescent morons’. Scott sat quietly a little way away, waiting for the moment when Stiles would turn away from Isaac and notice his continued presence.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked hesitantly, when that moment came. 

“Panic attack, I think, probably triggered by falling into the cellar. Not fatal or lastingly harmful, though not fun at all. Best thing to do is to be there, not to leave him alone with his thoughts, whatever they are. I remember, after my mother died-“ Stiles ducked his head, and Scott scooted over to put an arm around him. The three of them stayed there until they heard Erica’s shriek to call them for dinner.

Scott wouldn’t have thought much of it, really – these things happened to everyone eventually, he supposed – except that a week or so later, while they were running errands for Derek (who preferred not to let himself be seen around the town too much, especially not for plebeian reasons like buying food, but also liked to be able to eat) they passed a fishmonger, and suddenly Isaac stiffened and stopped dead.

“What? What is it?” Scott, automatically on danger alert, scanned the surroundings but saw nothing to cause that reaction. Then he became aware that Isaac was muttering something, and strained to hear.

“Fish…the cellar” Isaac took off again, running faster than ever, and the episode was over, leaving Scott concerned and confused in equal measure.

A few days later, the crash of Stiles dropping a plate in the Hale kitchen – ‘okay, maybe that was too much Adderall’ – sent Isaac into a silent, shaking panic. Scott’s mind went blank for a moment before remembering Stiles’ advice, and reaching forward to grasp Isaac’s hand, to reassure him that he wasn’t alone.

After that, Scott took the next mealtime opportunity to ask his mother what might be happening, with, of course, suitably altered names and circumstances. He described the events as best he could, and saw dawning understanding on her face. 

“This friend of Stiles – has he had anything bad happen to him in the past that you know of? I don’t mean just normal bad – something like abuse or rape or seeing people die, maybe?”

Scott caught his breath, remembering the cellar at the Lahey house, and the fridge inside, and nodded.

“Then what might be the case – I can’t say for sure; I’m not a psychologist and haven’t seen him anyway – but it sounds like he might be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a condition which affects some people who have been through horrific things, and one of the main symptoms is panics and flashbacks to the event caused by certain stimuli associated with it.”

Scott’s brain raced. True, the cellar had been dark, very dark, and now he came to think about it there had been a certain faint fishy smell down there. The plate smashing didn’t quite fit, but he wouldn’t have put it past Isaac’s father to have thrown crockery at him on occasion. 

“So why now, if it happened years ago?”

“It depends. Sometimes these things just surface randomly; sometimes there’s a particular happening that brings it all rushing back.”

Scott thanked his mother gruffly, and attended to his food, thinking all the time about how best to keep Isaac safe without Derek knowing – for he was fairly sure that Derek would not be sympathetic at all to such a perceived weakness. 

So, over the next few weeks and months, he learnt all he could about what triggered Isaac’s panics, what helped to calm him down, and, incidentally, more and more about Isaac himself. You can’t pay that much attention to someone without getting to know them a bit, after all. Or perhaps more than a bit.

One Saturday morning, his phone rang at about 8am. He answered with an incomprehensible sleepy grunt, only to be jolted awake and nearly drop his phone when he realised it was Derek calling him.

“Scott, get over here right now. Something’s up with Isaac, and he won’t talk or come out of his room. All he said was that it wouldn’t be an issue for much longer.”

“Got it. On my way.” He pulled on a jumper and swung out of the window, already dialing Stiles (who would be just as annoyed to be woken up, and just as willing to help) to ask for a ride.

They pulled up to the Hale house just over ten minutes later, having successfully broken all the speed limits on the way. Scott leapt out and ran across to where Derek was waiting outside the door, looking uncharacteristically dour even for him.

“He’s upstairs. Be careful.”

Scott nodded, and continued, reaching Isaac’s door and knocking gently.

“Go away.”

“Hey, it’s only me. Scott. I won’t hurt you.”

Taking the lack of further protest as grudging assent, Scott eased himself gently in, and stopped, horrified. There, on his bed, was Isaac, with a knife and a small vial of wolfsbane, got heaven knows where. It didn’t take a massive intellect to figure out Isaac’s plan. Scott gasped, and the noise alerted Isaac to his visitor. His head jerked up, immediately defensive. 

“What? Why are you here?”

“Isaac, I’m your friend. I’m not going to hurt you. Promise. Please, tell me what’s going on.”

Then, for the first time, Isaac really did talk. About how his father had laughed at him, told him he was useless and worthless, hit him if he cried. About how his mother had died giving birth to him – a delicate woman anyway, a difficult childbirth was the last thing he needed. About how his father had always, always reminded him of this. Of how he was a murderer from the hour of his birth. How he would never be good enough to atone for that. Of how he was scum that should never have existed. How he had tried to hide that from everyone, to be brash and bold. How he’d thought that being a werewolf would make that easier. How he’d loved his new strengths at first, had pretended that they made everything okay again. How he’d realised, later, with the Argents hunting them, that he was even more of a monster than before. And then, with the panics, how he was just a burden to everyone. Dragging them down with him. Unwanted. Useless. A monster. Better off dead.

“Isaac.” Scott’s voice broke his trailing litany. “Isaac, that’s not true. I promise you it’s not. In fact” he swallowed “perhaps now isn’t the best time, but I’ve been meaning to tell you: I love you. For you. For the boy who struggles every day to overcome his fears. For the boy who cares enough, despite everything, to help animals for Deaton. For the boy who protects his pack to the very end.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Then Isaac looked directly at Scott for the first time that day, still confused and bitterly hurt, but with less conviction now. Scott moved towards him, slowly and carefully, gently taking the knife and wolfsbane away and putting his arms round Isaac instead, kissing his dark curls and the space behind his ears and the back of his neck, murmuring endearments and reassurance and telling Isaac how wonderful he was.

“We will get through this, you and I. Whatever it takes, we will get through.”


End file.
